Method and apparatus to vary power level of training signal

ABSTRACT

Briefly, a method to transmit over an uplink channel a training signal having a power level which varies according to a parameter related to downlink channel characteristics is provided. Communication system that includes communication devices to transmit and receive the training signal is further provided.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

In modern communication systems such as wireless local area network(WLAN), wireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) or cellular systems,advanced communication technologies may utilize downlink channelknowledge at the transmitter to increase total throughput of datatransportation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The subject matter regarded as the invention is particularly pointed outand distinctly claimed in the concluding portion of the specification.The invention, however, both as to organization and method of operation,together with objects, features and advantages thereof, may best beunderstood by reference to the following detailed description when readwith the accompanied drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is an illustration of a portion of communication system accordingto an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

It will be appreciated that for simplicity and clarity of illustration,elements shown in the figures have not necessarily been drawn to scale.For example, the dimensions of some of the elements may be exaggeratedrelative to other elements for clarity. Further, where consideredappropriate, reference numerals may be repeated among the figures toindicate corresponding or analogous elements.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In the following detailed description, numerous specific details are setforth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the invention.However it will be understood by those of ordinary skill in the art thatthe present invention may be practiced without these specific details.In other instances, well-known methods, procedures, components andcircuits have not been described in detail so as not to obscure thepresent invention.

Some portions of the detailed description, which follow, are presentedin terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations ondata bits or binary digital signals. These algorithmic descriptions andrepresentations may be the techniques used by those skilled in thesignal processing arts to convey the substance of their work to othersskilled in the art.

Unless specifically stated otherwise, as apparent from the followingdiscussions, it is appreciated that throughout the specificationdiscussions utilizing terms such as “processing,” “computing,”“calculating,” “determining,” or the like, refer to the action and/orprocesses of a computer or computing system, or similar electroniccomputing device, that manipulate and/or transform data represented asphysical, such as electronic, quantities within the computing system'sregisters and/or memories into other data similarly represented asphysical quantities within the computing system's memories, registers orother such information storage, transmission or display devices. Inaddition, the term “plurality” may be used throughout the specificationto describe two or more components, devices, elements, parameters andthe like. For example, “plurality of mobile stations” describes two ormore mobile stations.

It should be understood that the present invention may be used in avariety of applications. Although the present invention is not limitedin this respect, the circuits and techniques disclosed herein may beused in many apparatuses such as communication devices of a radiosystem. The communication devices intended to be included within thescope of the present invention include, by way of example only, mobilestations, base stations and access points of radio systems such as, forexample wireless local area network (WLAN), wireless metropolitan areanetwork (WMAN) two-way radio transmitters, digital system transmitters,analog system transmitters, cellular radiotelephone transmitters,digital subscriber lines, and the like.

WMAN and/or WLAN mobile stations and/or base stations intended to bewithin the scope of the present invention include, although are notlimited to, transmitters and receivers for transmitting and receivingspread spectrum signals such as, for example, Frequency Hopping SpreadSpectrum (FHSS), Direct Sequence Spread Spectrum (DSSS), and the like.The spread spectrum signals may be either in Frequency DivisionMultiplexing (FDM) (such as Orthogonal Frequency DivisionMultiplexing/Orthogonal Frequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDM/OFDMA)or in time division multiplexing (TDM) or in Code Division MultipleAccess (CDMA), if desired.

Some embodiments of the invention may be implemented, for example, usinga machine-readable medium or article which may store an instruction or aset of instructions that, if executed by a machine (for example, bymobile station 200 of FIG. 1, and/or by other suitable machines), causethe machine to perform a method and/or operations in accordance withembodiments of the invention. Such machine may include, for example, anysuitable processing platform, computing platform, computing device,processing device, computing system, processing system, computer,processor, or the like, and may be implemented using any suitablecombination of hardware and/or software. The machine-readable medium orarticle may include, for example, any suitable type of memory unit,memory device, memory article, memory medium, storage device, storagearticle, storage medium and/or storage unit or the like. Theinstructions may include any suitable type of code, for example, sourcecode, compiled code, interpreted code, executable code, static code,dynamic code, or the like, and may be implemented using any suitablehigh-level, low-level, object-oriented, visual, compiled and/orinterpreted programming language, e.g., C, C++, Java, BASIC, Pascal,Fortran, Cobol, assembly language, machine code, or the like.

In accordance with embodiments of the invention, a channel may be aphysical transfer medium. The physical transfer medium may be used totransfer signals such as, for example, informative data signals,training signals, pilot signals, sub-carriers signals, preamble signalsand the like, that may be modulated by one or more modulation scheme.Furthermore, the channel may be a combination of the physical transfermedium, components of the transmitter and/or the receiver, for examplepath loss, noise, interference or the like. It should be understood tothe skilled artisan that embodiments of the invention may operate withmany types of signals, which partially mention above, and the inventionis in no way limited to the above mentioned signals. For the clearnessof the description, embodiments of the invention will be described withtraining signals, although the scope of the present invention is in noway limited in this respect.

Turning to FIG. 1, a communication system such as, for example, awireless metropolitan area network (WMAN) 1000, in accordance withexemplary embodiment of the invention is shown. Although the scope ofthe present invention is not limited in this respect, IEEE standard802.16 family may describe an air interface for broadband wirelessaccess that may be used with WMAN 1000. WMAN 1000 may include a basestation 100, a mobile station 200, an uplink channel 300 and a downlinkchannel 400. Uplink channel 300 and downlink channel 400 may include oneor more channels.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, mobile station 200 may include one or more antennas, forexample an antenna 210. In addition, mobile station 200 may includes anantenna port 220, a transmitter (TX) 230, a receiver (RX) 240, a powerlevel controller 250 and an estimator 260.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, base station 100 may include one or more antennas, for exampleantennas 110 and 115. In addition base station 100 may include one ormore antenna ports 120 and 125, a transmitter (TX) 130, a receiver (RX)140, a calculator 150 and an estimator 160. The antennas of mobilestation 200 and or base station 100 may include a dipole antenna, anomni-directional antenna, an internal antenna, a Yagi antenna, or thelike.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, obtaining characteristics of downlink channel 400 at basestation 100 may be done via Time Division Duplex (TDD) reciprocity, ifdesired. The qualities of TDD reciprocity may be obtained when usingsimilar frequency band for the uplink and downlink channels. Accordingto some embodiments of the present invention, downlink channelcharacteristic may be deduced from knowledge of the characteristics ofthe uplink channel 300. For example, mobile station 200 and base station100 may transmit in a TDD system. Mobile station 200 may transmittraining signals over uplink channel 300 at a power level that may bevaried according to a function known to base station 100, thus allowingbase station 100 to measure and/or to estimate uplink channelcharacteristics. This may be done by using training signals either inFrequency FDM such as, for example OFDM/OFDMA or in TDM or in CDMA, orthe like. In some embodiments of the invention the training signals mayinclude a vector of training symbols. Mobile station 200 may vary apower level of the training symbols according to a parameter related tocharacteristics of downlink channel 400. In some embodiments differenttraining symbols may have different power level which may vary accordingto the parameter of downlink channel characteristics.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, mobile station 200 may receive signals over downlink channel400 and may measure and/or estimate one or more parameters of downlinkchannel 400 characteristic from the received signal, if desired. In someembodiments of the present invention, mobile station 200 may transmitone or more training signals over uplink channel 300. For example,mobile station 200 may transmit a training signal 320 having a powerlevel which varies according to a parameter related to the downlinkchannel characteristics.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, downlink channel 400 as presented in the frequency domain, maybe defined as Y(f)=H(f)x(f)+N(f), where:

-   -   Y may be a vector of measurements of characteristic of downlink        channel 400.    -   x may be a vector of transmitted information;    -   N may be a vector of noise components whose components may        include interference from sources like adjacent base stations;        and    -   H is a diagonal matrix of channel coefficients. It should be        understood that the some interference components may arise from        an internal structure of receiver 240, These may include thermal        noise, phase noise, non linearity interference terms or any        other internal noise source such as, for example, a path loss or        the like.

In some embodiments of the invention, two or more antennas may be usedat the transmitter 130. In those embodiments, Y may be

${Y(f)} = {{\sum\limits_{m = 1}^{M}{{H_{m}(f)}\;{x_{m}(f)}}} + {N(f)}}$where x_(m) may be the signal transmitted from antenna m (e.g. antenna115 and/or antenna 110) and H_(m) may be the channel response from theantenna m, (e.g. antenna 115) to the receiving antenna (e.g. antenna210).

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited to thisembodiment, receiver 240 may receive from base station 100 a message 400that may include a transmit method value. According to some embodimentof the invention, the transmit method value may be a fixed power schemeand/or an interference dependent power scheme. For example, message 420may include an instruction to transmit the training signals via antennaport 220 according to the interference dependent power scheme, ifdesired. The interference dependent power scheme may include,transmitting one or more training signals in a power level which may berelated to the interference level. According to some embodiment of theinvention the power of the interference level of downlink channel 400may be depicted as σ_(d) ²(f).

According to embodiments of the present invention, receiver 240 mayreceive a signal 460 that may include the downlink characteristics.Estimator 260 may estimate and/or measured at least one parameter thatmay be related to the downlink characteristics. For example, estimator260 may estimate the value of the interference level of the downlinkchannel 400, for example σ_(d) ². Power level controller 250 may varythe power level of training signal 320 according to the estimated valueof the parameter. For example, the power level of j-th uplink trainingsignal P(j) may be calculated according to

${P(j)} = {{TxPower} + {10\mspace{11mu}{\log_{10}\left( {\frac{1}{T_{n}}\frac{\min_{i}{\sigma_{d}^{2}(i)}}{\sigma_{d}^{2}(j)}} \right)}}}$

-   -   where, in some exemplary embodiment of the invention, TxPower        may be the sum of transmit power per OFDMA symbol as set by        previously by power level controller 250, and T_(n) may be the        number of training signals.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, transmitter 230 having antenna port 220 may transmit overuplink channel 300 training signal 320 having power level P(j) which isadapted according to a parameter of downlink channel characteristics.For example, the parameter may be the power of interference level σ_(d)² of downlink channel 400, and/or downlink path loss to interferencelevel ration

$\left\lbrack \frac{h_{m}}{\sigma_{d}} \right\rbrack^{2}$and/or signal to noise ratio (SNR) of downlink channel 400.

Furthermore, in some embodiments of the invention, mobile station 200may transmit two or more training signals (where n may be the number oftraining signals) in an average power level T. Thus, the sum of thepower levels of training signals may not exceed the desired averagepower T. For example, assume that the normal average transmit power mayset to T then setting

$p = \frac{T}{\sum\limits_{i = 1}^{n}\frac{1}{\sigma_{M}^{2}(i)}}$and transmitting the k-th training signal using the power of

$\frac{p}{\sigma_{M}^{2}(k)}$may yield a transmission of average power T. In some embodiments of theinvention, base station 100 may recover the SINR at mobile station 200by transmitting the average transmit power T to base station 100 byusing for example, a low-rate transmission, if desired.

Although, the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, base station 100 may receive by antennas 110 and 115 viaantenna ports 120 and 125, respectively, the one or more trainingsignals transmitted by mobile station 200 over uplink channel 400 (e.g.training signal 320). Receiver 140 may receive over uplink channel 400training signal 320 which is transmitted in a power level inverselyproportional to downlink channel chacteristics. Estimator 160 mayestimate the characteristics of downlink channel 400 based on thereceived training signal. Calculator 150 may calculate a transmittingpower value P_(base) of a signal 420 to be transmitted over downlinkchannel 400 based on for example, estimated characteristics of downlinkchannel 400, for example SINR, as estimated by estimator 160 fromtraining signal 320. Furthermore, calculator 150 may calculate atransmitting power value of signal 420 based on an additional valueprovided by a message 360 received over uplink channel 300, if desired.

According to some embodiments of the invention, base station 100 maytransmit a signal to a user via a selected antenna, if desired. In oneembodiment of the invention, in order to reduce the effect of negligibleinterference levels, terms such as, for example

$\frac{1}{\sigma_{M}^{2}(k)}$may be replaced with

$\frac{1}{{\hat{\sigma}}_{M}^{2}}{Q\left( \frac{{\hat{\sigma}}_{M}^{2}}{\sigma_{M}^{2}(k)} \right)}$where Q(•)Q(.) is a soft clipping function. For example,

${Q(x)} = \left\{ {\begin{matrix}c & {x > c} \\x & {{x} \leq c} \\{- c} & {x < {- c}}\end{matrix}.} \right.$In addition, the value {circumflex over (σ)}_(M) ² may represent theaverage interference level, if desired.

According to embodiments of the invention, following algorithm may beused at mobile station 200:

1. calculate the interference power level at the receiver side;

2. calculate a constant to reduce near-far effect;

3. calculate the soft power clipping function; and

4. transmitting training signal 320 using a power level which maydependent on the average power level T, the near-far effect and theinterference level.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, base station 100 and mobile station 200 may use a protocolwhich includes messages to perform the algorithms describe above. Forexample, base station 100 may send a request message, for examplemessage 460, over downlink channel 400. Base station 100 may instructsmobile station 200 to start transmitting training signals by aninformation element embedded in the request message.

Although the scope of the present invention is not limited in thisrespect, mobile station may transmit training signals over uplinkchannel 400 in a power level which is inversely proportional to theinterference level. In some embodiments of the invention, mobile station200 may vary the power level of the training signals according to theinterference level. Furthermore, mobile station 200 may transmittraining signals with different power levels, if desired. In someembodiments of the invention, mobile station 200 may vary the powerlevel of the training signal whose frequency is in a near vicinity of afrequency of an interferer signal received over downlink channel 400.For example, mobile station 200 may decrease the power level of thetraining signal whose frequency is in a near vicinity of a frequency ofan interferer signal according to the interference level of theinterferer signal.

According to some embodiments of the invention mobile station 200 maysend a message 360 that may include a value that may be used by basestation 100 to calculate characteristics of downlink channels. Forexample, such a value may be SINR at one or more frequency bins. Basestation 100 may measure characteristics of downlink channel 400 byuplink training signal 320 and may transmit signals over downlinkchannel 400 in a power level which may be related to the interferencelevel and the value received in message 360, if desired.

While certain features of the invention have been illustrated anddescribed herein, many modifications, substitutions, changes, andequivalents will now occur to those skilled in the art. It is,therefore, to be understood that the appended claims are intended tocover all such modifications and changes as fall within the true spiritof the invention.

1. A method of assigning power levels to Orthogonal Frequency-DivisionMultiple Access (OFDMA) training signals comprising: receiving, over adownlink, a message including a transmit method value, wherein thetransmit method value indicates an interference dependent power scheme;determining a transmission power level P(j) of each uplink OFDM trainingsignal (j) according to${{P(j)} = {{{Tx}{Power}} + {10\;{\log_{10}\left( {\frac{1}{T_{n}}\frac{\min_{i}{\sigma_{d}^{2}(i)}}{\sigma_{d}^{2}(j)}} \right)}}}},$wherein TxPower is a sum of transmit power per OFDMA symbol, T_(n) is anumber of training signals and σ_(d) ²(j) is the interference levelmeasured at the vicinity of the j-th training signal; decreasing thetransmission power level of each uplink OFDMA training signal whosefrequency is in a near vicinity of a frequency of an interferer signalaccording to the interference level of the interferer signal; andtransmitting the OFDM training signals over the uplink according to theinterference dependent power scheme.
 2. The method of claim 1, whereintransmitting comprises: transmitting at least one OFDMA training signalof the OFDMA training signals to provide a function of an interferencelevel of a downlink channel.
 3. The method of claim 1, comprising:transmitting a message over an uplink, wherein the message includes avalue for calculating a characteristic of first and second downlinkchannels.
 4. The method of claim 3, wherein transmitting the messagecomprises transmitting the message including a signal to interferenceand noise ratio.
 5. The method of claim 2, comprising: transmitting eachOFDMA training signal at a power level inversely proportional to aninterference level of a frequency in the vicinity of a downlink OFDMAtraining signal frequency, wherein a sum of power levels of all OFDMAtraining signals is not exceeding a desired average power level.
 6. Awireless communication device comprising: a receiver to receive, over adownlink, a message including a transmit method value, wherein thetransmit method value indicates an interference dependent power scheme;an estimator to estimate an interference power level of each OrthogonalFrequency-Division Multiple Access (OFDMA) training signal received overthe downlink; a power level controller to determine a transmission powerp(j) of each uplink OFDM training signal (j) according to${{P(j)} = {{{Tx}{Power}} + {10\;{\log_{10}\left( {\frac{1}{T_{n}}\frac{\min_{i}{\sigma_{d}^{2}(i)}}{\sigma_{d}^{2}(j)}} \right)}}}},$wherein TxPower is a sum of transmit power per OFDMA symbol, T_(n) is anumber of training signals and σ_(d) ²(j) is the interference levelmeasured at the vicinity of the j-th training signal and said powerlevel controller is able to decrease the transmission power level ofeach uplink OFDMA training signal whose frequency is in a near vicinityof a frequency of an interferer signal according to the interferencelevel of the interferer signal; and a transmitter to transmit the uplinkOFDMA training signals according to the interference dependent powerscheme.
 7. The wireless communication device of claim 6, wherein thetransmitter is able to transmit each uplink OFDMA training signal at apower level inversely proportional to an interference level of afrequency in a vicinity in frequency of a downlink OFDMA training signalfrequency and wherein a sum of power levels of the all uplink OFDMAtraining signals is not exceeding a desired average power level.
 8. Thewireless communication device of claim 6, wherein the transmitter isable to transmit a message including a value of a characteristic of thedownlink channel over an uplink.
 9. The wireless communication device ofclaim 8, wherein said characteristic is a signal to interference andnoise ratio.
 10. The wireless communication device of claim 6, whereinthe transmitter is able to transmit the uplink OFDMA training signal ina time division duplex system.
 11. The wireless communication device ofclaim 6, wherein the message includes an instruction to transmit uplinkOFDMA training signals according to a fixed power scheme.
 12. The methodof claim 1, comprising: transmitting said message over an uplink,wherein the message includes an instruction to transmit uplink OFDMAtraining signals according to a fixed power scheme.